


You Wanted A Hero Tonight

by tj_teejay



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: daredevilkink, Depression, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 02, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6728596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt reaches out and Karen has to decide what she wants to do with that. Is there a way for them to move forward and rebuild what he single-handedly tore down? And what about Foggy, will he and Matt ever be friends again? Episode tag to 2x13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. But Your Secret’s Safe With Me

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's Note:** Prompt fill for [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/7552.html?thread=14419584#cmt14419584) and [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/7552.html?thread=14072448#cmt14072448) prompt. And, yes, I do realize that I’m not the only person to have written this episode tag. I hope it can live up to the rest of them and what the show might have had in mind. Also, this kinda turned from episode tag to a full-on attempt at a reconciliation fic. I guess I really needed this to work through all my feelings on season 2.  
>  Story and chapter titles after the song “Made of Steel” by Our Lady Peace.  
> Thanks go out to [Citlali](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Citlali/pseuds/Citlali) for the beta!  
> I will handwave the timeline they give us in the season 2 Elektra flashbacks, because season 1 established that Matt and Foggy met in undergrad in 2010, and not ten years ago. And somehow, the season 1 timeline seems to make a lot more sense.  
>  **Warning:** Contains spoilers for all of season 2. May be triggery if you have issues with depression.
> 
> +-+-+-+-+

“I’m Daredevil,” Matt says to her—in his deep, gentle voice.

It stops any thought Karen may have had cold. The bold statement hangs in the air, and she stares and stares, her heart pounding in her chest. She looks at him, and there’s a nasty gash over his right eye, dark, purple bruises on both cheeks.

His face is directed at her, and it almost seems like he’s staring into her with brown eyes she can’t see through his dark sunglasses. Matt is— He is Daredevil. That doesn’t make sense. How can he be Daredevil?

“You’re blind,” she blurts out, somewhat clumsily.

His mouth twitches, he swallows heavily. “Yeah, uh... It’s— Can we sit? This may take a while. If you—” He hesitates. “If you want to hear it.”

Does she? She knows the answer before she says it out loud. “Yeah,” she whispers, well aware that it may be the first olive branch she is about to extend to him.

The chair by her desk scrapes across the floor as she sits down in her old spot. The one she’s become accustomed to, the one she has sat in almost every day for the past year.

He places the mask he’s still holding on the desk, then drags the chair over that stands next to the wall to his old office. She notices that there is no fumbling for its exact location, no awkward groping or reaching out. He sits down in the creaky thing with the desk between them. To give themselves a safety barrier—a figurative symbol for that gaping chasm he’s created between all of them that somehow he hopes they can bridge.

“So, uh...” she starts, “you’re not blind?”

“I am.”

“Then how is this possible?”

His brow briefly furrows, his fingers are playing with the hem of his woolen coat. “I have—” He stops, swallows again, lets out a breath. Obviously, he hasn’t rehearsed this part. His voice is soft, but also desperate.

And then he tells her his story. How he was blinded by toxic chemicals that enhanced all his other senses as a child. How he can sense objects around him, how he can listen to sounds that are miles away, how he sees the world and sculpts it into his own picture only he can interpret.

It sounds... crazy. Batshit crazy. Because this is the stuff you read in superhero novels or see in science-fiction movies. This is _not_ the kind of stuff your former boss and guy you almost slept with just tells you in a one-on-one conversation in your old office that you’re just about to clear out.

He finishes, and she doesn’t think she’s even heard his last sentence. A heavy silence settles, and Matt is the first to break it. His voice is so low that she can only just hear it. “Karen?”

“Yeah,” she says quickly. “Yeah, I... This... Christ, Matt, this is a lot.”

“I know,” he tells her, his head bowed. The dark glasses still shield his beautiful eyes from her, and she knows that if she could see them right now, they’d be filled with guilt and sorrow. And maybe a shred of hope.

Her eyes wander over to the burgundy cowl that’s mocking her from the table top—its red eyes glowing, almost boring into her. She tears her gaze away, because that thing is starting to freak her out.

It’s hard to try and picture this fragile, tortured man opposite her in it. In that suit, throwing punches, beating up criminals, throwing them through windows and pounding their faces with billy clubs and padded fists. It won’t quite compute.

She’s seen him as his alter ego flipping around, doing things that no human should ever be capable of doing. She’s been—

“You saved my life,” she says. “Twice.”

He nods. “Yes.”

She wants to ask why, but she already knows the answer. “I... thank you.”

Something ripples across his face that she can’t quite place. “I had to,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because it was you.”

She can’t help herself and lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “God, that’s so cliché.” And then the anger bubbles up, and she can’t stop it. “That is such a bullshit cliché answer. Did you rehearse that one, Matt? Huh? Did you stand in your apartment and practice this nice little conversation we’re having here?”

“No,” he says, his face crumpling. It’s all he says.

“Then what? What do you expect from me? I take it Foggy knows about all this.”

“Yeah, Foggy knows.”

“Is this your little Coming-Clean Tour? Did you just stop by his place half an hour ago to confess, and now it’s my turn?”

“No. He’s known for a while.”

And then it falls into place. The ‘car accident’ that wasn’t. All the awkward moments of Foggy trying to cover for something Matt wouldn’t tell her. All the lies and the half-lies.

“I take it you’re not an alcoholic, then.”

“No.”

“Okay, well, I guess _that_ was a good one. Cause,” she lets out a dismissive huff, “I actually fell for it. How many other lies have you been telling me—has Foggy been telling me?”

“Too many,” he admits meekly.

“Yeah,” she says bitterly. “Way too many.”

“It wasn’t meant to happen this way, Karen. Foggy, he— He found out by accident. He found me in my apartment one night. I was in pretty bad shape.”

Her voice is cold. “How many other people know about this?”

“There’s a nurse, Claire. She saved my life once. More than once.”

“Well, _that’s_ convenient. Who else?”

“Elektra and Stick.”

What kind of names are those? Is he making this up? “Electric _who_ now?”

He draws in a shaky breath. “They— Look, it’s difficult to explain. And... they don’t matter now. Because what it comes down to, is that there’s a reason why I don’t tell people. Because it puts them in danger. And that... that’s the last thing I want.”

She looks at him, refuses to take pity. “Yeah, well, I guess that didn’t work out so well, because I still got abducted, and Foggy still got shot.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then there’s a quiet, “I know it doesn’t mean much, and maybe it never will, but I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

He looks so torn up about it, and maybe something inside her shifts, muting the anger and the betrayal that is simmering just below the surface.

“Is this why the Castle trial went to hell? Because you were putting your vigilante life over this, over us?” She gestures at the room around them.

“In a word, yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“That woman in your bed. The old man. Do I wanna know about them? Or is that another answer you’re gonna withhold to,” she draws quotation marks in the air, “‘keep me safe’?”

“Elektra and Stick. I can tell you about them. If you really want to know.”

Does she? She isn’t even sure. And there’s another question that surprises her, and probably shouldn’t be asked, but it’s there. “Did you sleep with her?”

“No. At least not this time.”

“And what does _that_ mean?”

“We... we were together in college. We weren’t exactly good for each other.”

“So, you and me, that wasn’t... Was any of that even real?”

His voice is stronger this time. “All of that was real, Karen. _All_ of it. When I told you that I tend to bring disaster to the best things in my life, I think you can understand some of that now, can’t you?”

“Yeah. Although I didn’t quite have _this_ in mind.”

He lets his head sink again, fiddles with something in his lap she can’t see. “Karen, I... I would understand if you... if you didn’t want to have any part of this. Of me. I can— I can go and never look back, I can—”

“No,” she interrupts him. “No, I don’t want that. But you understand that we can’t just go back to the way we were, don’t you? You burned a lot of bridges, Matt. Not just with me. With Foggy. With everything that Nelson and Murdock ever stood for.”

His mouth twitches, his lips press together. He sounds broken. “Yeah, I know,” he whispers.

She reaches over to take the mask, feels how surprisingly light it is. “This,” she taps it lightly with her fingernails, “this is a start. I appreciate that you came here to tell me. I can’t promise you that we’ll ever fix this—fix the things you broke. But we can start gluing some of the pieces back together. I’m willing to give that a try if you are.”

His face twists, his chin trembling with a silent quiver. He says nothing. It seems like he’s fighting hard to rein in his emotions that he tends to keep locked up most of the time. The struggle is there, because Matt Murdock does not tend to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Somehow, she thinks back to that one night he came into the office, months ago, all torn up about something. He was telling her some abstract story about how he was supposed to push his friends away, about how he couldn’t do it alone. He’d had bruises on his face then, too.

That— She understood now. That had been all about Daredevil. About how he carried the whole world on his shoulders and had no one to share it with. Because then, he’d also had that falling out with Foggy—one of the grounding forces in his life. The glue holding the two halves of him was coming apart yet again, and no matter how much of an asshole he’d been these past few weeks, she can still see that tortured soul inside the conflicted, haunted man sitting opposite her.

And then it hits her how much it must have cost him to come here tonight and share his secret with her. It must have taken a whole lot of guts.

She isn’t even sure what comes over her when she stands up and closes the distance between them. She stands behind him, lightly places her hands on his shoulders and gives them a gentle squeeze.

“It’s okay, Matt. This is our first step. One of many, I hope.”

He stiffens briefly beneath her touch, then harrumphs before he says, “So, where do we go from here?”

She lifts her hands from his shoulders and breaks the connection. “I don’t know. Wherever it takes us.”

He chuckles lightly. “That’s not exactly an answer.”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s all I got for now. And I’m... I’m here, okay? You can call me or we can get together. Take things slow. How does that sound?”

He nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

And that’s how they leave it. Slow progress. She’s hopeful it’ll come. The olive tree will have to yield a lot more branches.

+-+-+-+-+

She calls Foggy the next day, asks to meet him. He reluctantly agrees, even though she can tell he isn’t particularly happy when she says it’s about Matt. The burnt bridges are still smoldering. She can smell the soot in the air.

They meet at a coffee place near their old office. Familiar ground, but not too familiar, amidst tacky Christmas decorations and soft carols trickling from the speakers around them. He’s on his lunch break, all smart suit and polished shoes and that God-awful haircut that is supposed to look sleek but really only makes him look like a used car salesman. She liked the old Foggy better. She wonders if Matt would agree with her.

“Hey,” he greets her, breezing into the seat opposite her at a table in the corner where there’s little traffic. He’s panting, probably rushed here a bit.

“Hey, thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, any time. Let me go grab a drink.”

She watches him queue up, tries to guess what he’s gonna order. Something calorie-heavy, probably. Sweet. White chocolate mocha with whipped cream.

When he comes back and slides into the seat opposite her, all she can see is milk foam in the mug. It looks like an ordinary latte, maybe a cappuccino. He didn’t even put any sugar in it. The new Foggy. Heh.

His fingers twitch nervously; he looks at his watch after he takes the first sip of his hot beverage. “I, uh, I have about half an hour.”

Damn. This isn’t the kind of conversation that should be running on a schedule. But it’s better than nothing and she’ll take what she can get. Her caramel latte leaves a bittersweet aftertaste on her tongue.

“Matt told me,” she starts.

Foggy blinks at her. “Told you what?”

“About...” She doesn’t wanna say Daredevil. Not out loud in a public place like this. “... his nightly alter ego.”

Foggy gapes, his mouth forming into a little o before he closes it. “He... told you? Voluntarily?”

“Yeah. Last night. He asked me to meet him at the office. Brought his, uh... the mask. That freaky thing with the red eyes.”

“He told you,” Foggy repeats incredulously.

She has to squint. Is that a problem? Maybe it is, because he didn’t tell Foggy. Not on purpose. That’s what he said to her, isn’t it? That Foggy found out by accident.

“Yeah, he... I don’t know, it was him reaching out, I guess.”

Foggy lets out a sarcastic huff. “Did you tell him to go fuck himself?”

Geez. Foggy’s still mad. Not that she blames him. Matt was a dick. Smoke still rises from all the collapsed bridges.

“No,” she says. “We talked. He told me about his senses, about how he— how he does what he does. I mean, yeah, I was mad, too. All the lies, Foggy. You know what that feels like, right?”

He nods bitterly. “Yeah. Too well.”

Silence settles, only to be interrupted by sips of coffee and the clanking of mugs on tabletops. The coffee machine at the counter grinds both coffee beans and the charred remains of friendship.

“It’s why the Castle case fell apart, right? It’s why you yelled at each other, why ‘Nelson and Murdock’ is no more.” It’s not even a question, because Matt already confirmed it yesterday. Still, she wants to hear it from Foggy.

“Yeah. Because he’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t have his priorities straight. Or maybe he does, which makes it even worse, because it means that we—you and I, Karen—and the wonderful little law firm we had, it meant jack shit to Matt.”

“Oh, come on, you know that’s not true.”

“Well,” he raises his arms in defeat, “it didn’t mean enough.”

And that statement, perhaps, is true. She isn’t sure what to say to that. She can’t claim to know the full story. Not unless Matt tells her. “Do you know why?”

Foggy sounds defeated. “Why what?”

“Why he couldn’t make ends meet? What it was that pulled him away?”

“No, I don’t, and I don’t care.”

She refuses to believe that. Foggy might be mad, but he’s not the kind of person to push people out of his life. Not the way Matt does—the way he has perfected it to a tee. Foggy has a big heart that just needs a little convincing.

“He mentioned someone called Elektra. And Stick. Do you know who they are?”

A sigh escapes Foggy’s lips. “She’s... They dated in college. Some foreign diplomat’s daughter. Greek. Or French. I don’t remember. Totally loaded. She kinda wrecked him. I’m not sure what went on, he never told me, but their breakup was messy, and he was a trainwreck for weeks after it fell apart. He almost missed the finals because of her.”

“And this Stick guy?”

“Well, it—” he lets out a little chuckle, “You’ll think it sounds crazy, because _I_ sure did, but apparently he’s some kind of, I don’t know, ninja master who trained him to fight. When he was a kid. Kind of a father figure, I guess.”

“And now they’re back in his life?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I can’t say I give a shit.”

“I think I saw her. In his bed.”

Foggy shakes his head again, the incredulity all over his face. “Yeah, he sure knows how to seduce his women and screw everyone else over in the process.”

“Yeah, but, see? I don’t think that’s what it was. He said he wasn’t sleeping with her. Not this time.”

“No, I think what you may have seen was worse than that.”

“And what does _that_ mean?”

“They were teaming up to fight against the Yakuza. Or something.”

“The _Yakuza_...?”

“Yeah. What do you think he does when he goes out there at night?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Vigilante justice? Punishing bad guys for their crimes?”

“Except sometimes the bad guys are organized, and that’s the thing about Matt. He doesn’t know when he’s in over his head, when to back down. So he’ll run headlong into it, screw the consequences. And then someone like Elektra comes along and eggs him on, and he’ll go lying about it to his friends, dragging everyone down with him. And then shit like this happens. It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve seen it one too many times. And now... now I’m done.”

The breath she draws in is as heavy as her heart. Matt and Foggy had always seemed inseparable. Unshakeable. Indestructible. If they can fall apart like this, what does that mean for the life she’s trying to build here in the city?

“You know, for what it’s worth, I think he has regrets. I think he’s truly sorry that it went this far.”

“Yeah, he always is.”

“So, that’s it? You’re gonna call it quits on your friendship?”

Foggy raises his eyebrows. “Is there even anything left to salvage? The firm is gone. And he told me in no uncertain terms that it would be better for me to move on, that I’d be better off without him.”

“And you believe that?”

He blows out a long breath through his lips. “I... don’t know. I thought I did.”

The next question forms slowly before she says it out loud. “Don’t you worry about him?”

Foggy rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, takes another sip from his mug. “All the time.”

That puts a little smile on her face. That big heart of his, it’s still in the right place. But then the anger sears back, because he says, “And that’s part of the problem, too. He has no sense of self-preservation. Did he tell you about how I found out?”

“Just that he was in pretty bad shape when you found him in his apartment.”

“And that’s an understatement if there ever was one. He was literally bleeding out. From multiple stab and slice wounds after a fight with a ninja. Wouldn’t let me call 911. This nurse, Claire, she came to patch him up, literally sew him back together. He was barely hanging by a thread before she got there.”

She nods. “Yeah, the elusive car accident, right?”

“Yeah.” He makes a grimace. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t your secret to tell.”

“So, seeing all of that, I _know_ how bad it gets, Karen. Because he’s a stubborn goddamn idiot, and he’ll go back out there again to get sliced and diced all over again. And one day, there isn’t gonna be a Foggy or a Claire to find him in time, and he’ll just bleed out somewhere, and we’ll be left picking up the pieces.

“And this is why I worry, and it’s also why I can’t do this anymore. It’s eating me up inside, and I don’t understand why he doesn’t get that.”

“I think maybe he does. It’s why he’s cutting you loose.”

Foggy sighs, bone-deep and weary. “I thought it would help to cut ties.”

“But it didn’t...?”

“Well. I’m sitting here, telling you how much I still worry. What do you think?”

“But that can be a good thing, Foggy. Because I think he needs you. You need each other.”

Foggy looks at her for a long moment. “Was he okay when you talked to him?”

The question doesn’t surprise her. Not really. “Yeah. Banged up. A cut over his eye, a few bruises on his face. Nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“Broken ribs?”

“I don’t know.” She tries to think back to their encounter. Did he move more gingerly than he normally would? Did he flinch when she touched his shoulders? “Maybe,” she adds.

“Can you, uh... can you keep an eye on him for me? Because I’m not sure I can. Not right now.”

She gives him a small nod. “Yeah. I’ll try. Anything I should know?”

He grins. “His first aid kit is on the shelf by the corridor wall in the living room. He doesn’t like strong pain meds because he says they mess with his senses, but he’ll take aspirin or ibuprofen. Claire’s number is in a burner phone he tends to carry with him when he goes on his little adventures, but I’m not sure she’s gonna be helping out anymore. She quit her job over the whole Metro General disaster. How good are your sewing skills?”

He draws a disgusted face. “Seriously?”

“I’m not even kidding.”

“Well, I guess I better do some online research. Maybe take a first aid course.”

He’s still smiling when he downs the last of his coffee and gets up. “I’m sorry, but I gotta run. I’m glad you called me. Let’s do this again.”

She gets up, too. Takes a step closer, and then says, “Come here.”

They briefly hug, and it feels good. Like maybe there’s room for friendship again. For all of them. His attaché bag is black and bumps against his side as she walks out of the coffee shop. It’s new, genuine leather, and not like him at all.

She still wants the old Foggy back. And she knows Matt does, too. Wherever he is.

+-+-+-+-+

Karen has her first taste of Foggy-level worry four weeks later. She’s messaged with Matt a few times since his ‘confession’. Noting profound. Just checking in. Wishing him Merry Christmas, texting him a Happy New Year greeting on New Year’s Day.

They met over lunch once, but it was just sandwiches, banter and inconsequential small talk. In retrospect, they’d mostly talked about her, and little about him. She hadn’t dared ask the complicated questions.

This time, she hasn’t heard from him in over a week. No replies to her messages, e-mails, phone calls. So this is what Foggy was talking about. The not knowing, the possibility of something having gone awry—it’s not a good feeling.

She leaves him another voicemail to say she’s coming over. He doesn’t respond to that one, either.

In front of his battered apartment door, she knocks, hammers against it. She listens. There’s nothing. She wishes for a brief moment she had his supersenses to figure out if he is inside.

As it is, she gives Foggy a call, asks him what to do. He explains to her that there’s a roof access upstairs. That there’s a key to the roof door tied to the fire extinguisher in the corner. That’s useful information he could have shared with her earlier. Maybe he just didn’t think of it at the time.

She calls Matt’s name before she rounds the corner to the railing at the top of the stairs in his apartment. His living room below is bathed in soft, yellow light, sun rays streaking the dusty floor below. There is no Matt.

She calls his name again. “Matt? Are you here? It’s Karen. I’m coming in.”

The stairs creak beneath her steps. The sliding door to his bedroom is half closed, and she peers inside, trying to prepare for the worst. The bed isn’t empty. There’s a human lump, a shock of dark brown hair peeking out.

“Matt?” she asks again.

He doesn’t move. She shrinks back when she almost steps into a pool of dried vomit next to his bed. Whoa. Shit. That can’t be good.

“Matt?” she tries again, ever so carefully peeling the duvet away. Her hand shakes. Maybe he’s— God, she hopes he’s alive.

His face is pale, his hair is greasy, and he’s definitely breathing. There’s no blood. Her hand touches his cheek, and it’s warm but not too warm. He stirs, let’s out a soft moan.

“Matt, it’s Karen. Come on, wake up.”

There’s a hum, he shifts away from her. Jesus Christ, what is this? Is he sick? Should she call an ambulance? He’s not running a fever, not that she can tell. Is he injured?

She fully pulls back the duvet to expose the rest of him. She’s just… she’s just checking. It still feels too intimate. “Matt,” she addresses him in a clear and stern voice. “I need you to talk to me. I need to know what’s wrong with you. Are you injured? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

“No,” he grinds out. “No ambulance.”

“Okay, then what?” His eyes are open now, lazily directed at the ceiling.

“I’m fine,” he says weakly.

“Yeah, bullshit. You’re a far cry from fine. Are you injured? Why is there puke on the floor?”

He doesn’t answer her, and, God, how frustrating is this? She tries again, softly touches his naked torso that only displays old scars but no fresh wounds. “Dammit, Matt. Talk to me!”

“Hit my head,” he mutters.

“How long ago was this?”

He breathes in and out a few times. “Two days? Three?”

“You’ve been lying here like this for three days?”

He curls onto his side, away from her. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, that does it. I’m getting you to a hospital. You could have a brain bleed, or God knows what else.”

“No!” he says, this time firmer. There’s a pleading undertone right there. “Please don’t, Karen. This isn’t… It’s not the concussion.”

“Then what _is it_?”

The words take too long to form. “I just… just don’t— I want to be alone, okay?”

No, that’s not okay. Not by her standards. She watches his back, how it rises and falls with his shallow breaths. There are scars there that look like they would have hurt—two long gashes and something round, maybe a bullet hole. And then it falls into place. It’s not the concussion. This is full, adulterated depression in all its glory. And it makes sense—the person he is, it makes so much sense.

So what now? She digs around in her brain for something to remember about people with depression, but she has zero experience with this. All those Facebook links to articles that give advice that she only skimmed over. What did they say? What was an appropriate, even helpful response to this?

Maybe she can cover the basics first. If he’s been lying here for days, has he had anything to drink? There’s an empty glass on the nightstand, so maybe that’s a yes. No indication of food, so that’s probably a no.

She needs a game plan, because she’s way out of her depth. The best she can think of for now is pull the blanket up again to keep him warm and get him a fresh glass of water that she places on the nightstand.

“Matt, there’s some water here, okay? It would be great if you could drink that. I’ll stick around for a while. I know you don’t want that, but I’ll be… I’ll be in the living room. Please tell me if there’s anything you need.”

Not surprisingly, he doesn’t answer or move.

When she goes into the living room, she closes the sliding door behind her. Well, he will probably still hear her, but she isn’t exactly sure how his enhanced senses work.

Her cell phone in her hand, she goes for the phone-a-friend lifeline. Namely Foggy. She only gets his voicemail, and when she calls his office number, an assistant informs her that he’s in a meeting. She asks her to tell him to call her back, and sends him a text for good measure.

In Matt’s bathroom, she finds a plastic bucket and a cleaning rag. There’s dishwashing detergent in the kitchen that she mixes with lukewarm water. If anything, she can at least make herself useful.

The door to the bedroom slides open with a low whirr, and she keeps her voice low this time. “I’m just gonna clean your floor, okay? I’ll be out of your hair after that.”

With the help of paper towels and the wet cloth, she manages to get the mess taken care of. Halfway through it, he mumbles, “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s okay, Matt. I don’t mind.”

She’s sure, however, that _he_ does, but he’s in no shape to do anything about it. And that has to make it okay for the both of them.

Silence stretches on while she finishes up, wiping the floorboards dry with another paper towel. That should bring some olfactory relief. It strikes her how badly he must be crashing right now if he couldn’t even muster the energy to clean up his own, three-day-old vomit. Her brow furrows in worry for those long two seconds she spends giving him another look before she leaves the room again.

Foggy calls her ten minutes later. “Hey, you left me a message to call back? Did you get a hold of Matt?”

“Yeah. He’s, uh… he’s not doing so great.”

Foggy’s voice is immediately agitated. “Is he injured?”

“No, he’s… Well, he said he hit his head, and I think he may have had a concussion, but I think it’s more like a depressive episode. Has he had those before?”

Foggy stays silent for a moment, then he says, “Yeah. They can get pretty bad.”

“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say this one’s right up there on the ‘pretty bad’ scale.”

“Tell me more. Is he responsive? Talking?”

Karen tells him what she knows, what she’s seen. She asks Foggy if she should get him to a doctor or a hospital. Foggy says no, better not, unless she thinks he’s in real danger. She’s not quite sure how to categorize that. What if he won’t eat? Won’t drink? When does depression turn into ‘real danger’?

“What do I do, Foggy?” she finally poses the million-dollar question.

He sighs. “Well, it’s not like there’s a miracle cure. It’s pretty much a guessing game. Try not to let him push you away, but don’t impose. Gentle pressure, sometimes that helps. Try to get him to eat and drink, although he probably won’t want to. Fresh fruits help sometimes. He likes raw bell peppers. The yellow and red ones. And cantaloupe melons.

“Talk to him, encourage him. He probably won’t respond for a while, but he’ll listen, even if he doesn’t show it. And he’ll probably tell you that he wants to be left alone, when that’s actually not what he wants.”

“Should I… should I touch him?” It seems like such an odd question, but she needs to know what’s in the rulebook.

“Yeah, maybe. Not too much. His skin, it’s… I think it may get more sensitive when he’s like this. You’ll figure it out, I think you’ll know when you see it. God, I don’t know, Karen, it’s not like I’m an expert on this.”

“Well, you’re sure more of one than _me_.”

“When he’s feeling a little better, offer to take a walk. Fresh air, you know? Let him take the lead for what’s okay and what isn’t. And the rest… just play it by ear, I guess.”

“Thanks, Foggy. That’s a big help.”

“Do you want me to come over later?”

She wonders if that’s good for Matt. Or for Foggy. Probably not, with the way things are. “I think I’m okay for now. I’ll call you if I need you, okay?”

“I could drop off some groceries,” he offers.

“No, it’s fine, I’ll go get something in a little while. Thanks, Foggy.”

“Yeah, any time. You can—” There are voices in the background, and he pauses, then says after a moment, “Sorry, I gotta go. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She hangs up, wondering if Matt listened in to their conversation. If he wants to curse both her and Foggy right now. It’s entirely possible he doesn’t care enough in his current state of mind.

Food may be a good distraction for both of them, but Matt’s refrigerator is gaping empty. She checks some of the perishables, throws away a piece of cheese that has green blotches of mold growing on it, and half a withering head of lettuce.

There’s a jar of chicken stock in one of his kitchen cupboards, and maybe that’s not the most terrible idea. At least it’ll give her something to do, even though she has no clue whatsoever if Matt will eat it.

It takes her a while to find everything she needs in his little kitchen corner. She admires all the Braille labels on the supplies and groceries, wonders if Foggy helped him put those together. Aren’t there smartphone apps for these kinds of things nowadays?

Fifteen minutes later, she pours the chicken broth into two bowls. When she enters, Matt is still lying with his back to her, he doesn’t look like he’s moved. The bowls both go to his bedside table for now, and she sits down on the edge of his mattress.

“Matt?”

He doesn’t move, and she isn’t sure if maybe he’s asleep. Should she wake him if he is? He’s probably slept more than his fair share in the last few days.

She lets her hand hover over his hip for a long moment, but then softly places it there. Just that—her palm on his hip. She hopes it’s okay, but he doesn’t flinch. She takes it as a positive sign.

“Hey, I’m gonna sit with you for a while, okay? It would be nice if you could let me know that you’re awake. Are you awake, Matt?”

He lets out a long sigh, and that’s good enough for her. “I made you some soup. Do you think you can eat some if it? We can eat it together, if you like. I’ll stay with you. Or I’ll go. But you have to tell me what you want, cause I… I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. Help me out. Please. Just a little.”

He doesn’t. He just lies there, and she moves over to the armchair next to his bed, sipping her soup. When she’s done, she remembers Foggy saying he might like to be told things. So she talks. About her new job, her new colleagues, the article she’s working on. She tells him about online comments she’s received—both the hilarious and the enraging ones.

She talks about how she’s considering to help out at the soup kitchen after Ellison sent her there for a piece he wanted her to look into. How she likes the new, little ethnic store on the corner, even though it’s totally tacky and not even really her style. How she’d love to go to the theatre more but doesn’t know who to ask to come with her. The squares of sunlight from his window panes track her journey through time. She wonders if he can feel their warmth through the blanket.

She’s starting to think all of this is a wasted effort. That he either isn’t listening or fell asleep. She draws in a deep, troubled breath and gets up to take her dirty soup bowl to the kitchen.

It surprises her to hear his deep, raspy voice when she gets up from the bed. “Karen?”

He turns to lie on his back when she looks over at him, and there are pillow marks on one cheek, below red-rimmed eyes that are dry now but look like he may have been crying before.

“Yeah,” she says softly.

“Can I have some of that soup?”

She stares at him for a second, then jolts into action. “Yeah, of course. It’s probably cold now, let me go warm it up for you.”

The microwave’s ding rings hollow through his quiet apartment two minutes later, the bowl steaming as she takes it out with a dish cloth wrapped around it.

He’s sitting up against the headboard when she comes back to the bedroom, all messy, unwashed hair and forlorn expression.

It’s all she can do to hover awkwardly by the bed with the soup and a spoon. “Where do you want it?”

He weakly gestures to the bedside table.

“It’s still hot,” she says awkwardly, and, duh. As if that isn’t obvious.

“Thanks,” he responds, his voice feather-light.

“Is it okay if I stay?”

He gives her a feeble nod. The spoon clanks against the rim of the bowl when he puts it into his lap and takes a careful sip from the spoon, and then another. She watches in fascination, even though she knows she shouldn’t. It hasn’t really sunken in yet, all that stuff about his enhanced senses, and what that actually means.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles in between spoonfuls of broth.

“What for?”

His head is low, the soup momentarily forgotten. “That I’m— That you had to see this. That you’re cleaning up my mess.”

“No, Matt, please don’t worry about that, okay? That’s what friends are for. Please don’t ever apologize for that.”

“It’s not fair on you. This shouldn’t... it shouldn’t have gone this far.”

“When is life ever fair?”

“Karen, you should go. I shouldn’t be taking up all your time. You—”

“No, it’s okay,” she interrupts him right there. “Neither Foggy nor I have been around much lately, and I think right now you could really use a friend.”

The creases in his brow tell her he doesn’t quite agree, but that’s probably also the depression talking. Matt’s sense of independence had always been so strong. This is probably amplifying it by several degrees.

He stays quiet, forces down another spoon of soup, and she tells him, “Look, Matt, I’m happy to help, and I’m not just saying that. We used to be there for each other, I’d like to think that hasn’t changed. I want you to reach out before it gets this bad. There’s no shame in asking for help.”

His brow knits together again, and his face briefly twitches in a discontented grimace. It’s all she can do not to sit on his bed and draw him into a hug. But that would be— No, they’re not quite there yet, all the unspoken secrets and half-truths still cling to the spaces between them.

He puts the half-finished soup on the nightstand. “This was really nice.”

“What else can I do? And please don’t say ‘nothing’, because there has to be something.”

There’s a shrug from him, and that isn’t a much better answer, is it? She racks her brain, tries to think back to what Foggy said earlier. Something about fresh air. Is that too much? “Hey,” she suggests, “How about you take a shower, and we’ll go for a little walk? Nothing big. Just around the block, maybe?”

“No,” he says almost immediately.

Okay, maybe that was too much. But then he shifts, moves his covers back, rubs a hand over his face. “I should take a shower,” he mutters.

God, yes. She couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s, uh... Do you need—”

He sits on the edge of the bed and interrupts her before she can finish the question. “No, I’m fine, Karen.”

She quickly gets out of the chair, half-turns towards the next room. “I’ll be in the living room, okay? Just let me know if you need anything.”

Karen tries hard not to watch him, busies herself in the kitchen corner with rinsing out the soup bowls. When he shuffles into the room with fresh clothes in hand, she quickly tells him, “Hey, Matt? I’m gonna quickly run a few errands, okay? I promise I’ll be back.”

Abandonment issues, Foggy had talked about them at some point. She doesn’t want Matt to think she’s gonna bail on him, when all she wants to do is restock his fridge and get him something nice. He responds with a hum, his hair sticking up every which way, and then the bathroom door closes behind him.

It takes her longer than expected to find all the groceries she had in mind, and the two plastic bags dangle heavy in her hands by the time she reaches the sixth floor. She’d taken his keys from the wooden bowl by the door, she didn’t think he’d mind.

“I’m back,” her voice chirps maybe a little too loudly when she enters his apartment.

She half expects him to have gone back to bed, but he’s sitting on the sofa in a fresh pair of black sweat pants and a dark grey hoodie, a Braille binder in his lap, the letters of which his fingers are idly tracing. She can’t tell if he’s really reading it, but his index finger moves a lot slower than she’s seen him doing it in the office.

“So,” she opens the conversation as she strolls over into the kitchen. The items in the plastic bags make a plopping sound as she puts them on the counter there. “I bought some fresh groceries. I’m not sure where exactly you keep all your stuff, so I’ll just leave the things that don’t go into the fridge here on the counter.”

The bell peppers are fresh and crisp when she cuts them into slices. The cantaloupe melon is maybe a little on the firm side, but it tastes sweet when she tries a small piece. She carries both to the sofa on two plates.

“I made these, if you want. Can you tell what they are?”

“Yeah,” he just says, his finger still on the page he may or may not have been reading. “Thanks. But, uh... Karen, you don’t have to do all this.”

“Oh, I know. But I want to.” She takes a bell pepper stick. It crunches when she bites into it—the taste tart on her tongue.

There’s uncomfortable silence, and she can see he’s definitely not reading now. This is... it’s awkward—an uneasy truce that neither of them seems to want to upset. But she has questions. Too many of them.

“Matt? Can I ask what happened?”

He blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Did something happen that set this off?”

He gives her a small shrug. “Nothing happened.”

“Did you— You said you had a concussion. So, obviously _something_ happened. While you were out as Daredevil, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah. Baseball bat. I didn’t pay enough attention. Knocked the wind out of me for a second.”

“Does that happen often?”

“No,” he says in a low voice. “It’s just... I’ve had trouble focusing. Ever since...”

He trails off there, doesn’t finish the sentence. “Since what?”

He gives himself a little push to adjust his sitting position. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“No, Matt. I don’t want to forget it. Something’s obviously troubling you. Don’t you think it’ll help if you talked about it?”

He opens his mouth, lets it hang there for a long moment, then closes it again without giving her an answer. He looks so forlorn and lonely, and Karen does the only thing she can think of. She scoots closer and gently takes his hand that’s lying idly on his thigh.

“Matt, you don’t have to do it all alone. Isn’t that why you showed me the mask in the first place? I wanna help you, but you gotta give me _some_ thing.”

His hand twitches, as if he wants to pull it away, but he doesn’t. A moment passes, then two. His voice is heavy and laced with regrets when he confesses, “Elektra died.”

Karen’s mind turns into a whirlwind of thoughts. Elektra. The woman she saw in his bed, the woman Foggy told her messed him up big time in college. She has no idea what to do with this information, what to make of it.

“When?”

“The night you were abducted. On the roof. We... we fought the Yakuza. Nobu, he’s a ninja master… he stabbed her. I couldn’t do anything.”

Her voice is just above a whisper, and she squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“How did you— How’d you get away? We were down there. It was total chaos. The police, press, it was a spectacle.”

“Stick helped. Karen, I... I listened. I made sure you were okay before I left.”

“No, Matt, that’s not— You don’t need to worry about me, okay? The whole block was swarming with police, and Foggy was there.”

“I know,” he says in a small voice.

“Did you know he offered for me to stay on his couch that night?”

He suddenly seems to remember something, if the expression on his face is any indication. “Your apartment, I broke in through your window. Are you... do you have a place to stay?”

She lets out a chuckle. “Matt, it’s been over a month. I got it fixed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize.” Her lips quirk into a smile. “Not that it’s not slightly creepy that you’re breaking into my apartment. If I didn’t know better, I’d say maybe you had ulterior motive.”

He ignores the attempt at humor. “Brett told me they were after the people Daredevil had helped. You were one of them. I had to find you.”

“Oh, I know. And I appreciate that. I’m glad you found us, saved us.”

He sucks in a fast breath, slips his hand out of their touch to tuck it back into his lap. “Yeah, and see? This is what I’m talking about. All of that happened because of me. If you didn’t know me, you wouldn’t have been in danger. You wouldn’t still _be_ in danger.”

She raises her voice. “No, Matt, you don’t get to put that all on you. Because you know what? All the decisions I’ve made, I would make them all over again.”

“Even now that you know who I am?”

“Yes, _especially_ now that I know who you are. Because what you’re doing—I believe in that. Well, maybe not all of it, but it’s not my place to judge you. Sometimes we do the things we do because we believe in them. Or because we have no other choice. Or because we’re backed into a corner with only one way out. I get that. And I will never blame you for choosing to become Daredevil.”

 _Not like Foggy,_ it rings in her head. It’s not like she even really knows that, but she can make an educated guess. Because Foggy’s not the kind of person who’d condone Matt going out at night, beating people up, and often bearing the very same brunt of whatever argument was the catalyst for the dispute.

He lifts his head and turns it slightly towards her. His empty gaze is directed at something in the middle-distance, the way it usually is. “So, you’re okay with me being him—being Daredevil?” There’s something hopeful in his tone.

She sighs. “I don’t know, Matt. I mean, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. But I understand why. I understand why you keep doing it. And it’s not like I have a choice, is it? Because I have a feeling that even if I tried to dissuade you, it wouldn’t be doing any good.”

“Do you want to? Dissuade me?”

She raises her eyebrows in a suggestion of a shrug. “I don’t know. I do, when I think about the fact that some asshole took a baseball bat to your skull hard enough to send you into a concussed downward spiral.”

“Yeah, that was— That doesn’t usually happen. The new suit, it’s pretty good.”

“Now I’m curious. Where did you get that made?”

His mouth twitches. “There’s someone who helps me with the equipment. I can’t tell you his name.”

“That’s okay. I’m just glad that—” She remembers something right then. “You were bleeding when you rescued me. Here.” She points to spot under her left collarbone, then takes his hand to guide his fingers there. “Was that... You were shot, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. But the suit absorbed most of the impact. The bullet didn’t go deep.”

“You were _shot_ , Matt.”

He shrugs it off. “It’s okay, Karen. I’ve had worse.”

“You’ve had _worse_?”

And it’s ironic that this is the moment where the smallest hint of a smile appears on his face. “Nobu, he almost gutted me once.”

“Gutted you?” She’s well aware she’s parroting him, but it’s just... wow. And not in a good way.

His face falls again. “Yeah. That’s how Foggy found out.”

“I know, he, uh... he told me. Well, not about the almost gutting part. And, Matt, I know it’s hard to see right now, but Foggy... he’ll come around. I think you need to give him some time.”

“It’s my fault, Karen. I made a huge mess of everything.”

She can’t help but nod. “Yeah, you kinda did. Did you tell him?”

“About what?”

“About Elektra?”

“No.”

“So he didn’t know you were working together?”

“No, he knew that part. He wasn’t exactly happy about it.”

“Can you blame him, though? It sounded like there was history there, from college.”

Matt’s face darkens several notches. “Yeah. We didn’t part on amicable terms. Foggy was all too happy to see her go.”

“Matt, I... when you’re ready, I’d love to hear that story.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, and leaves it at that.

“There’s, uh... I’ve been thinking about this. When we were... when we were dating. How was that gonna work? Were you ever gonna tell me?”

He goes quiet, and she realizes that it was probably the wrong question to ask.

“I don’t know,” he says in a feeble voice. “I wanted to. You deserved to know. But I didn’t want to lose you. Because you were the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.”

Her voice takes on a bitter undertone. “Until Elektra came back.”

“No,” he quickly denies. “That’s not— that’s not what happened. Karen, I—”

“She was in your bed, Matt. What was I supposed to think?”

“She was injured. She needed to recuperate. That’s the only reason she was in my bed.”

“But you still love her, don’t you?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, until he grinds out, “She’s dead, Karen.”

Fuck. She’s messing this up. She’s supposed to offer moral support, instead she’s alienating him, backing him into a corner. “I’m sorry,” she quickly says. “That was uncalled for.”

He slowly shakes his head. “No. You’re right. Part of me still loved her.”

And that... she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do with that. He shifts to turn towards her and adds, “Karen, I wish there was a way I could take things back. That we could start over. I realize it’s too late for that, but I... just... I’m sorry.”

She presses her mouth together for a brief moment. “Yeah, Matt, I don’t know if I can go back to that. Not this soon, okay? I still— I care about you. And I’m sorry, too. But we just... we need to give it some time, see how it plays—”

Her phone rings in her purse. It’s that old phone ring tone that every third person uses. She’s never cared enough to change it to something more personalized. “Hold on,” she mutters and digs for the thing before it can go to voicemail.

The name on the display says, ‘Foggy’. “Hey,” she greets him.

“Hey. Just checking in. How are things on the home front?”

She lifts her arm to give Matt a, ‘Give me a minute’ sign, not sure if he can interpret it. She wanders into the hallway, even though it’s a futile endeavor because she knows now—if he wants to, he will listen in to both sides of the conversation.

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Is he up? Did you get him to eat anything?”

“Yeah, some soup. We’re talking now.”

“Did you get him out of bed?”

“Yes. Foggy, he can hear all of this.”

Foggy makes a _psh_ sound. “Get used to it. Come on, it’s not like I’m asking you if you’ve had sex, or anything.”

“Foggy!”

“No, but seriously. Call me a glutton for punishment, but you had me worried. _Matt_ had me worried. I just wanna know if he’s okay.”

“He’s okay. Or... getting there. I think.”

“So no need for the cavalry?”

“No, I think I’ve got this.”

“Okay. Call me if you need me, okay?”

“I will. Thanks, Foggy. Talk to you later.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Matt is standing by the window when she gets back to the living room, his back turned to her. She sidles up to him, not quite able to keep the sheepish expression from her face. “You heard all that, right?”

He looks pained when she studies his profile. “Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s okay. Foggy’s just worried.”

“He shouldn’t be.”

“Matt, he’s known you for— how long? He probably knows you better than anyone. And you know him. Foggy doesn’t just stop to worry because you cut him out of your life. And I... and I don’t think he wants that.”

“He’s better off without me.”

“Come on, you know that’s bullshit.”

“No, he _is_. He got shot because of me!”

“That’s bullshit, too. He got shot because some crazy ass shooter had it in for the DA.”

“We took the Castle case because of me. And then I bailed on both of you.”

“Well, if I understand correctly, you had bigger fish to fry. Maybe more important ones, too.”

He shakes his head at her. “Why are you justifying this?”

“Because you know I’m right.”

“It was... it was all Elektra. She roped me into this, and I fell for it. And for what?”

“Matt, I think you need to let it go. There’s no point in rehashing all those regrets. We all need to move forward. And I’m hoping we can still do it together. Maybe not as Nelson and Murdock, but as friends.”

He stays silent, then asks, “Is Foggy happy? At the new firm?”

“He seems happy. New challenges, decent salary, a fancy office. I’m sure it’s the dream.”

Matt scrunches up his nose, like he’s not so sure about that. “And you?”

“Yeah, it’s good. Difficult sometimes. Lots of pressure, but Ellison’s a good guy. Which begs the question, what are _you_ doing? Are you looking for a new job?”

“Yeah, I... uh. I came by some money. You don’t need to worry about me.”

She’s not sure what that means. Did Elektra leave him money? She vaguely remembers that Foggy mentioned she was rich. She decides not to poke around any further in those smoldering embers and takes the hand that hangs loosely by his side.

“But I _do_ worry,” she tells him. “Because how can I not, when I’ve seen what all this did to you? When you don’t have work to immerse yourself in, and when you do what I probably think you’re doing.”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Putting on the suit and the mask every night, going out to beat criminals into submission until your fists are bloody and your adrenaline high masks all the ugly things that you don’t want to think about.”

His silence tells her that she’s not wrong, but she takes it as a good sign that his hand is still in hers. It takes him a long time to speak, and his voice is low and quiet when he does. “Karen, I can’t stop. I can’t stop being Daredevil.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And what does that say about me?”

That’s an interesting question. “I don’t— Matt, I don’t think I have an answer for that. Because that’s the part that I’m still trying to figure out. Matt Murdock and Daredevil, they seem like such polar opposites. It’s hard to believe they’re the same person.”

“But they are.”

“I know that, too.”

“And you don’t know if you can reconcile them with who you thought I was when we...” He lets it hang in the air.

“No, Matt, that’s not it. I mean, yes, I’d be lying if I said I wholeheartedly agree with what you do as Daredevil. Some of that is problematic. And will probably always be. But we’re all... We all have flaws—dark sides that we wish we didn’t have. I understand that.”

He turns to angle his body towards her. “Karen, are you... Is there something I should know?”

She blushes, and hopes he can’t sense it. “No, I’m just saying that none of us is perfect.”

She stops there, because she has a feeling he might be punching right through her façade if she gives him any cannon fodder. The conversation stalls, and they stand by the window, her gaze boring through the milky window panes at the building next to his. Manhattan city life busies the streets downstairs, soft noises filtering up to them.

What is _he_ listening to, she wonders. Voices whole city blocks away? People coming and going, going about their lives, talking to each other?

His eyes fall into step with the stoic, defiant expression on his face, and she’s about to ask him something, when her phone rings again. She lets go of his hand when she goes to find her purse and the phone in it. It’s a number from work.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she says to Matt.

The phone call is short. There are news reports she’s supposed to be following, things she needs to react to. Terrible timing, but she knows she can’t say no if she wants to make a name for herself with the New York Bulletin.

Before she can even say anything, Matt turns to her and tells her, “You should go.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” he assures her. She doesn’t believe a single word of it.

“Will you call me? Or text me? Just to let me know you’re not drowning. I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

“No, you don’t have to do that.”

She places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I would like to, if you’ll let me. Tomorrow for lunch? What do you feel like? Thai? Italian? Mexican? I’ll bring the take-out. My treat.”

“Karen...”

“Please just let me do this for you.”

He gives her a small nod, and she takes it. She gives his upper arm one last squeeze before she gathers her things, says goodbye, and leaves. Her heels click on the wooden floorboards, and she closes the door behind her with a heavy heart.

She knows now that Foggy has every right to be worried. Matt Murdock is a walking contradiction, and there are so many things that scream she should be staying the hell away from him. But how can she, when there’s that still glowing spark inside of her that made her fall in love with him in the first place?

And who knows? Maybe it’ll fizzle out eventually—if he just manages to mess it up often enough. Or maybe it’ll ignite and rekindle the fire that once was. She likes not to dwell on what-ifs. For now she’ll take what she can get. And if Matt needs her help, she is damn well gonna give it to him.

As she walks down the stairs, she holds on to the way his lips quirk up into that joyful smile when he likes something or when Foggy has said something funny. The way he deserves a semblance of happiness, the way he needs more good things in life to make up for the tortured part of his soul that she witnessed taking over today.

Maybe they will never be again what they used to be. But hopefully they’ll be something else, and possibly even something better. Something stronger. There is a certain hope in that.

+-+-+-+-+


	2. Hold Your Head High

“So,” Foggy awkwardly starts the conversation. “Here we are.”

Matt shrugs, his eyebrows shooting upwards behind those dark red glasses of his. A waitress comes to their table, introducing herself, taking their orders.

Matt just orders a salad and water. Foggy was gonna go for a burger with sweet potato fries, but now he feels guilty. “I need another minute,” he tells her.

Matt stays silent, the pained look on his face readable even without Foggy being able to see his eyes. Once Foggy’s settled on the Chicken Fajita wrap, he puts the menu aside and sighs. “Please don’t give me that look.”

“What look?” Matt immediately goes on the defensive.

“That looks that says you’d rather be in an active sewer than here.”

Matt nervously adjust his glasses and tries to rearrange his expression. It doesn’t really work. Of course it doesn’t. Matt Murdock has the worst poker face ever. “I’m sorry, Foggy.”

It sounds genuine enough, but that’s not why Foggy asked to meet with Matt. “Yeah, don’t do that. I didn’t come here for the apologies. We need to talk. _Really_ talk.”

“Heh,” Matt lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “And you picked a diner for that?”

Foggy looks around. On second thought, yeah, not such an inspired choice, even though there’s no one in immediate earshot. He sighs again. “Okay, maybe not the best idea ever. But I think we need some kind of... neutral ground.”

The waitress comes back to take Foggy’s order, and once she’s gone again, Matt asks him, “Did you... did you talk to Karen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she set this up?”

“Jesus, Matt. Way to jump the gun. No. Well, we might have talked about it. But I generally don’t need her to tell me how to reach out to my friends.” He rubs one hand over his face. “You’re determined to make this as hard as you can, aren’t you?”

Matt’s jaw clenches, the muscles there working away, and Foggy would like to scale back the resentment, but somehow he can’t, so he says, “Cause, Matt, if you’re adamant to just sit there and refuse to give me at least something, we can stop this right now. You can go back to brooding on your own, and you can keep locking me out of your life. And I will not be happy about it, but if that’s what you want, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“No, Foggy,” Matt quietly admits. “That’s... I don’t know how to do this. When I told you you’re better off without me, that hasn’t changed.”

“Yeah, that’s just your Catholic guilt talking. And maybe there’s some truth in that, but you know what isn’t fair? To just drop this on me without giving me a chance to factor into that decision. And no matter how stoic you may have pretended to be, I know you well enough to know that that wasn’t easy for you. Because I also know what happens when you try to do it all alone, and it’s not pretty.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“No. You had Elektra. And that Stick guy. Because they’re regular upstanding citizens and pillars of society, right?”

Matt presses his mouth together and says nothing, so Foggy continues. “And then what happened? Oh, look. They left. Real awesome friends you have there, Matt. Friends you can truly depend on. Friends who are there for you when you need th—”

“Stop!” Matt interrupts him harshly, then, in a softer tone, “Please stop.”

Foggy rolls his eyes, then lifts his arms helplessly. “But you can see what I’m saying, can’t you?”

“It’s not... Foggy, it’s complicated. Elektra was— she was different. She was... I can’t explain it to you.”

“Elektra is a human wrecking ball who almost made you flunk out of college. She lured you into a really dark place, and you were all too eager to follow her. And, Matt, I just can’t figure out why.”

Matt squares his jaw before he admits, “She understood me. For the first time in my life, I met someone who understood what I could do, and who didn’t reject me for it.”

“Did you tell her about your senses?”

“No. She already knew.”

“Heh. How would she know that?”

“She… Look, it’s complicated. But it was the first time I didn’t have to hide, you know? She knew all the things I could do. She made me feel alive, made me think that anything was possible.”

There’s an undertone that says, ‘In a way you never could,’ although Foggy figures that might just be in his head. “So what happened? In college, when you broke up.”

“She, uh... she pushed things a little too far.”

Okay, that’s cryptic, but Foggy figures that’s probably all he’s gonna get. At least right now. “So, are you two...” He makes a vague hand-waving gesture.

“No. She’s not around anymore.”

“Is she gonna come back?”

“No.”

“How can you be sure? It took her, what? Four years to drop back into your life? Five?”

“I’m sure, Foggy.”

“ _How?_ ”

“Because she’s dead, okay?” he snaps.

That’s— Whoa. Dead. When did that happen? “She’s dead?”

Matt deflates just a little bit in his seat. It’s hard to read his expression. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You never liked her.”

“I didn’t even _know_ her. All I knew was that she had this hold on you, and that it messed with you in ways that, from my point of view, looked anything other than conducive to a healthy relationship.”

“You wouldn’t have liked her.”

He decides to let it go, because somehow, he now wishes he’d had a chance to at least get to know her and make that decision himself. “Was it that night Karen was abducted? The big fight on the roof?”

Matt nods. “Yeah. She, uh... She got stabbed.”

“By the Yakuza.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna avenge her?”

Matt startles a little, so Foggy adds, “What? That’s not such an odd question, considering what you do.”

“No, Foggy, I’m not gonna ‘avenge’ her.” He puts the word in air quotes. “Stick took care of it.”

“Okay, wait. Backtrack just a step.”

“It was Nobu who killed her.”

“The crazy ninja who almost killed you? I thought he burned to death in that warehouse last year?”

“Yeah, so did I.”

“He survived that?”

“Looks like it.”

“And then he stabbed Elektra.”

“Yeah.”

“And then your blind ninja master killed him.”

“Yeah. Cut his head off, if you have to know.”

Foggy’s face draws into a grimace of pure disgust. “Okay, stop. I don’t need any more details.”

Matt keeps his mouth closed, and silence ensues, which is promptly interrupted by the waitress bringing them their orders. The wrap doesn’t taste very enticing, and Matt looks like his salad isn’t anything to boast about either. There’s lost of chewing and not a lot of words.

Foggy hates that he’s the one steering this whole conversation, and he’ll have to be the one to keep it going. He takes a sip from his Diet Coke, then asks halfway casually, “So, are you working on anything right now?”

Matt makes a shruggy face between putting salad leaves in his mouth. “Nothing you’d want to hear about.”

“Do you _have_ an actual day job?”

There’s resentment in his expression now, and his tone reflects it when he says, “Come on, Foggy, like Karen didn’t already tell you.”

“Jesus, Matt. Karen hasn’t told me anything. I don’t know what you think we do when we talk, but she doesn’t come running to me with every single piece of Matt Murdock gossip she might have picked up. Especially if it was something you shared in confidence.

“I mean, sheesh, I can’t believe you’re actually saying this. I carried your secret around for—how long? I don’t know what makes you think I’d go and pry information about you from Karen, like some vindictive high school jerk with a mean streak.”

Foggy puts his half-eaten wrap back on the plate. He’s suddenly lost all appetite, because who is this person sitting opposite him? What happened to the dorky, well-spoken lawyer who used to be his best friend in the whole world? Who took that sweet, vulnerable person and exchanged him with this cold-hearted asshole?

His mind goes back to that almost-argument they had in Matt’s hallway, how Matt and Daredevil were the same person. Maybe Foggy is the one who’s way off base here. Maybe this is who Matt ‘Daredevil’ Murdock has become—this self-sacrificing, holier-than-thou martyr whose heart doesn’t leave room for unimportant things like respect and loyalty and friendship.

He wipes his hands on his napkin and pushes his plate a few inches away. “You know, I guess I was hoping we could bridge the gap between us. But you’re clearly not interested. And it’s— It’s tearing me apart that you’re being like this, and I can’t figure it out. I can’t figure it out, Matt.

“Does our friendship mean nothing to you? Does it mean so little that you’re willing to throw it all away? Just like that? Listen to my heart right now, and tell me that what we had, all those years, they don’t mean anything to you.”

And that, finally, elicits some kind of emotional response from Matt. His chin is twitching, his brows drawing together above the bridge of his glasses. Foggy wishes he could see his eyes.

Matt’s voice is so low Foggy almost can’t hear it. “They do.”

“Then _why_ , Matt? Why are you like this?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits meekly.

“Yeah, that’s bullshit. Of course you know.”

“Because maybe I don’t deserve it. I’ve never deserved it. Instead I’ve dragged you down, and I’ve gotten you shot, and I’ve destroyed everything we were trying to build.”

“Yeah, and you know what? It takes two to tango.”

“You wouldn’t have taken the Castle case if it weren’t for me.”

“Maybe not. But in the end, it wasn’t all bad, was it?”

“Foggy, you were almost killed.”

“And so were you.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Of course it’s the fucking same!” There’s anger there, and Foggy can’t stop it from bubbling up, even though he knows he should. “Just because you run around in your fancy suit at night doesn’t mean you’re the only one who is willing to take risks.

“Get off your fucking high horse, Matt, and look around you. You have people rooting for you, trying to look out for you. If you keep pushing everyone away, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re gonna lose all connection you’ve had with what’s good in his world. You’re gonna crash and burn, and one night you won’t be cunning enough, or sharp enough, or fast enough.

“And then it’ll be your corpse that Brett is going to find in some alley or rooftop, and even though you think that all this self-loathing bullshit is gonna disconnect you forever from the people that matter, we will still be standing by your grave, blaming ourselves for the rest of our lives for not caring enough, or not trying hard enough, or just not being fucking there when you needed us.”

Matt’s head hangs low, and his face twists and twists. Something around Foggy’s heart clenches but also brings a certain relief, because—fucking _finally_ —he is shaking something loose. “Foggy,” he tries to wring out, but his voice breaks right there.

“It’s okay, Matt,” Foggy tells him, his voice quiet. “Just... think about that, okay? Because Karen and I, we’re still here. Despite all the shit that’s happened. Just think about what that actually means.”

He takes a long sip from his Coke and gets up as he puts the glass down on the table. “Lunch is on me. And I will be here when you’re ready to talk. I still want to be your friend, but you have to want it, too.”

“I do,” he says.

Foggy nods. “Good. That’s a start.”

He turns to go, but Matt’s voice rings out—low and sad. “Foggy—”

He stops and turns around. Matt has his head tilted up at him. There’s something hopeful there if he looks closely enough.

“Thank you,” Matt says.

“You’re welcome.”

Foggy doesn’t look back when he leaves.

+-+-+-+-+

It takes Matt a week to call Foggy. Maybe he needed to work up the courage. Maybe he needed to work through some of his bullshit. Foggy still smiles when he sees Matt’s name on his cell phone screen.

“Hey, buddy,” he greets him before he can stop himself from that all too familiar greeting.

“Hey,” Matt’s voice says. He sounds upbeat enough. “Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

“Can we talk?”

Hell yes. Foggy’s been waiting to hear those words, even though he wouldn’t have admitted it. “Totally. Name a time and place.”

“Can I come see you?”

Foggy’s crappy apartment isn’t much to look at, and he’s been meaning to look for something better, now that he has the funds, but it just didn’t feel important enough so far. “When?”

“Tomorrow night?”

“Sure. You bring the pizza, I’ll have the beer.”

“Anchovies and spinach?”

“Sound great. Seven p.m.?”

“You got it.”

Foggy is amazed how easy that was after they hang up. He has hopes that this opens the door for all the good things to come.

The next evening, Matt carries two cardboard pizza boxes in his arms when he stands in front of Foggy’s door. The smell is heavenly, and Foggy’s mouth is already watering. They settle down on Foggy’s scuffed couch, cheese strings and beer and everything. It almost feels like old times.

Matt chews on a bite of his grilled chicken, feta and tomato pizza before he says, “I was at the hospital after you got shot.”

Just like that, out of the blue. What is Foggy supposed to do with that? “Explain.”

Matt puts the pizza slice down in the cardboard box and angles his face towards Foggy’s. “I was on the roof, listening in.”

Foggy scoffs. “On the roof. Yeah, that’s awesome.”

Matt’s voice is small when he says, “I left you with the paramedics, and I… I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Well, it felt like I was!”

“I’m sorry, Foggy.”

He lets out a long breath, tries to make himself sound more neutral. “So what exactly did you think being on the roof would accomplish?”

“I was checking in on you, making sure you were okay. You were watching a game.”

“Okay, one, that’s creepy. Two, that’s actually kinda sad. I can’t believe you couldn’t deflate that guilt-ridden ego of yours enough to fit through my hospital door.”

Matt lets out a short chuckle. “Yeah, Claire said about the same thing.”

“ _Oh._ So you opted to talk to Claire, but not to me? You wound me, Murdock.”

Matt shrugs. “She cornered me on the roof.”

“I hope she had enough chastising words for the both of us.”

“Yeah. Too many.”

“Talking about Claire, did _you_ know that I enlisted her help in trying to find you after your little disappearing act. When the Grotto case went south and you ended up chained to a chimney.”

The remnants of the jovial expression vanish entirely from Matt’s face. “You looked for me?”

“Of course I did. There were blood smears all over the place, and I knew you would have been there. What was I supposed to think?”

“So you went to Claire?”

He nods. “Yeah. She looked at the hospital and morgue records around the city that she had access to. Your name didn’t come up, which we took as a good sign.”

“Morgue?”

“Yes, Matt. The morgue. Cause knowing what you do at night, that is still a very real possibility on any given day.”

“Foggy, you don’t—”

“Need to worry,” he interrupts. “Yeah, I’ve heard you say it, but it doesn’t help. Because no matter how often you repeat it, I still do.”

Matt’s pizza is forgotten by now. “Foggy, I don’t— I don’t know what to do with that.”

Foggy has to smile, because, fuck yes. That one of the answers that actually makes sense, rather than the hundredth assurance that Matt is fine on his own, and Foggy deserves better. “You’re supposed to suck it up and do better next time, Murdock. Let other people help you when it gets hard.”

Matt tucks his chin to his chest a notch. “How badly did I mess this up?”

“Very,” says Foggy, but there’s no anger or resentment there.

“You said we were done. Do you still mean that?”

He shrugs. “Nelson and Murdock certainly is. The two of us? I never thought it’d get to this point, to be honest.”

“That’s not an answer, Foggy.”

“Yeah, I know. Are you asking me if I think we can’t be friends anymore? Cause, look around. You’re sitting on my couch, eating pizza. What do you think?”

“This,” Matt says matter-of-factly, “is a truce, at best. Because you know we’re just dancing around the elephant in the room, don’t you?”

“The one with the two horns and the ridiculous, red suit, right?” Foggy puts his pizza carton away now, too, and turns his body so he can look at Matt from the other end of the sofa.

“I... Foggy, I told you I’m not gonna stop being Daredevil. And we’re beyond the point of being able to pretend he doesn’t exist. I think what you want is Matt Murdock without Daredevil, but it doesn’t work like that. Not anymore.”

“So what you’re saying is, it’s either the Matt Murdock-Daredevil package deal, or nothing?”

“Yeah. Cause we’re going to end up in this exact place again if you keep hoping that Daredevil is just a phase I’m gonna get over. Him and me, we’re the same person. And either you can live with that, or you can’t. But _please_ — please don’t tell me you want to move forward, when you already know you can’t. Rip the Band-Aid off right now, if you have to.”

Foggy thinks about this, tries to gauge his feelings. Cause Matt is poking at the sorest spot there is, and he knows it. They should have talked about this months ago. “Truth is, I thought I had accepted it—come to terms with your alter ego, and the fact that it’s a part of you. Guess I haven’t. Not really. It’s... it’s hard, Matt. It’s really fucking hard. Especially when you pull shit like this.”

“This what?”

“Taking on organized crime by yourself. Almost getting yourself killed. Putting the whole vigilante justice thing above your friends, above your own life.”

“I never meant for it to happen that way. And I can’t promise it won’t happen again.”

Foggy lets out a long breath. “I don’t know how to be your friend and not worry every night. I’m afraid all the time that you’ll come home with broken bones and blood gushing from open wounds, refusing to seek medical attention because you’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“Come on, now you’re over-dramatizing all of this a little. I don’t come home bleeding every night. In fact, most nights I don’t get injured at all. A bruise here and there, maybe a cut. I have the new suit now.”

“Which isn’t exactly bullet-repellent. So what if one night it’s not just your purse-snatching thug, but an army of weapons traders?”

“Despite what you may think, I don’t make it habit, taking on heavily armored lunatics every night, either.”

They stay silent for a moment, and then Foggy suggests, “Okay, so how about this? We establish a set of rules to get us started.”

“Rules? As in...?”

“I don’t know. As in, you send me a text every night after you come back, so that I know you’re okay.”

“And if I forget one night, you’re gonna come busting down my door with a bunch of paramedics in tow? I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Can’t we start small?”

“Here’s an idea. You don’t dive headlong into reckless situations. Instead you sit back for a minute and think about it, and then you ask for help if it’s something that has a more than thirty percent chance of getting you killed. Or you come to me, and we talk about it. Cause the whole keeping-me-in-the-dark thing, I found that doesn’t work for me, either.”

“There’s something you gotta do, too, Foggy.”

“And what’s that?”

“When I _do_ come to you, you don’t instantly suggest it’s an idiotic idea and try to patronize me out of it.”

“Only if you don’t insist on going out there again when you’re badly injured, or concussed, or otherwise not fit to take on any kind of criminal by yourself.”

“Only if you don’t try to take away or hide the suit whenever I show the slightest hint of an injury.”

“Only if you actually tell me about all of them.”

Matt is about to respond with another constraint, but Foggy interrupts him and gets a pen and a spiral notebook. They end up with a whole list of rules and guidelines. This... this is a start. Another one. Foggy hopes this one will stick. He looks at it again, and says, “I will get this printed in Braille, and you will put this on your fridge and re-read it every night.”

Matt gives him a smile. A genuine one. It looks good on him. “And if I break the rules, you’re gonna take away all my toys?”

“Starting with your ridiculous suit and mask. How can you even move in that thing?”

Matt shrugs. “It’s fine. Better than the old one.”

“The black outfit?”

“No, I had a red suit before this one.”

“Oh.” Foggy had never looked closely enough at the thing to notice the difference.

The conversation stalls, and even though Matt seems more optimistic than he’s seen him in a long time, Foggy can still see the flecks of dark underneath. He suddenly can’t help but ask, “Are you okay?”

Matt frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I was worried when Karen called me. It sounded like you crashed pretty hard.”

Matt’s expression darkens. “I’m okay, Foggy.”

“And how do I know that’s not you just shrugging it off, like you always do?”

“Because I’m not. Karen was... she was great. And you helped, too.”

“How did I help?”

“You gave her advice to help me through it. Because you know how it works, you always know what to do.”

“I think you’re giving me way too much credit. I’ve just lived in the same room with you for too long.”

Matt tries to look at him, and doesn’t really succeed. “And you’re still here, and I have no idea why that is.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re one dumb dickhead, Matt Murdock. If you still haven’t figured this out, you don’t deserve to be sitting on my couch.” He hopes Matt gets that he’s joking.

“Isn’t that the point I’ve been making?”

“Shut up, I thought we talked about this.”

“No, seriously, Foggy, I want to clear the air, make it work this time. Because I think we never did last time. And this won’t work if we keep avoiding the subject.”

Foggy drops the pretense. “I think we’re okay for now. Maybe we need to work on it, but let’s take it slow, okay? Start with this. Do it again if we run into roadblocks. Cause I don’t enjoy yelling at you in public restrooms. I don’t enjoy watching you run headlong into disasters, either. Let’s work with the list, try to do better. How’s that sound?”

Matt nods. “Sounds good. Thank you, Foggy. For this. For everything.”

Foggy grins. “For not being a dick, you mean.”

“For not being a dick,” Matt confirms with a smile that leans towards the mischievous spectrum. He takes a sip from the bottle of beer and leans back. “How’s the new job?”

Foggy follows suit. “It’s good. Well, to be fair, it’s a shark tank, but at least it’s not 98% assholes like Landman & Zack. And Hogarth is tough but fair. I like working there. There’s this woman who keeps coming around, I might have to hook her up with you. Goes by the name of Jessica Jones. There’s rumors about superpowers.”

Now Matt’s head perks up. “Superpowers?”

Foggy just shrugs. “Yeah. I’m sure before your whole Daredevil reveal, I would have just dismissed it as BS, but now I don’t know.”

“What kind of superpowers?”

“I wish I could tell you. I think she’s a PI. Alias something? The whole Kilgrave disaster, she was involved in that. Maybe you can sniff her out. You’re good with the whole stealth thing.”

Matt already looks determined. “Yeah. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Don’t get in trouble.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Foggy goes for his beer bottle on the coffee table and takes a long sip. Matt finally looks relaxed at the other end of the couch, and Foggy allows himself a small smile. “Hey Matt?”

“Hm?” he hums.

“I’m glad you told Karen. That makes everything easier.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Should have done it a long time ago.”

“I will hold back on the ‘told you so’s out of sheer sympathy. How did she take it?”

“Better than expected.”

“Well, maybe now we can throw pity parties the next time you bust a rib or five. Or get shot. Or impaled by poisoned ninja arrows.”

Matt suddenly flinches ever so slightly, and Foggy is taken aback. “Wait,” he adds. “Why are you wincing when I mention poisoned ninja arrows.”

One side of Matt’s face twists awkwardly. “It, uh… That may have already happened…”

“Wait, what? Seriously? You got impaled by a poisoned ninja arrow? _How?_ ”

“When Elektra and I were going against the Yakuza. I was distracted, noticed the threat too late.”

“Where did it get you?”

Matt points to a spot below his right collarbone. “Right here. Through-and-through.”

“It— wait. It went right through your ribcage? I thought the suit was supposed to protect you from shit like that.”

“I wasn’t wearing the suit at the time.”

“Okay. Did it not… did it not puncture a lung, or something?”

“No. Just muscle.”

“That must have hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“Jesus Christ, Matt.”

Matt suddenly looks pained. “Are you mad?”

“About what? That some Japanese ninja asshole shot a fucking arrow into you?”

“That I didn’t tell you.”

“Well, if I remember correctly, we weren’t exactly on the best of terms at the time. I assume this was right around the time you told me to go fuck myself.”

“Foggy, I never told you to go fuck yourself.”

“No, but you said I was better off without you. You didn’t really mean that, did you?”

“The part where you deserved better than what I could give you? Yes, I did mean that.”

“No, the part where you wanted to completely cut me out of your life.”

Matt’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything, and that’s good enough for Foggy. What he eventually offers is a low, “I’m sorry, Foggy.”

“It’s cool. I’m over it. Just don’t do it again, okay?”

Matt gives him a sad, little smile. “What? Get impaled by poisoned ninja arrows?”

“Yeah, that too.”

“Hey, uh, Karen told me... she told me she helped you after her apartment got busted up.”

“Yeah, she stayed here for a few nights until they could fix up her window.”

Matt looks a little sheepish. “That, uh... that was me.”

“You busted up her window? Why?”

“They went after the people Daredevil helped.”

“And Prince Horndevil rushed straight to save her from almost certain mortal peril.”

“Come on, Foggy, don’t mock me.”

He sobers quickly. “I’m sorry. It’s just such a fairy tale cliché. You _did_ save her, right?”

“Yeah. She didn’t tell you?”

“I think she did. But things were so crazy that night, I’m not even sure I remember most of it. What I don’t understand, though, is how she didn’t recognize that striking jawline and voice of yours.”

“I guess the blind thing is still a sticking point.”

“She knows about your senses now, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she think it was cool?”

“I don’t know, Foggy. We didn’t exactly get a chance to have an in-depth discussion about it.”

Foggy nods. “Do you still love her?”

And that seems to be a sore point, because Matt stiffens visibly over there in his corner of the couch. “I don’t know,” he evades, then adds, “yeah, I think I do.”

Foggy gives him what he hopes is an encouraging smile. “Give her time, Matt. She might come round. And so help me God, if you screw it up again and hurt her, I will make your life a living hell.”

Matt lets out a low chuckle. “I actually believe that. And I won’t.”

“Given your track record, I’m inclined not to take it at face value, but I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt this time, my friend. Don’t mess it up. I’m serious.”

It takes them another half hour and some more light banter to empty their beer bottles. It feels safe—safer than they’ve been for a long time, at least. Matt eventually gets up from the sofa, seeks out the bathroom, and then gets his empty bottle from the couch table to put it on Foggy’s kitchen counter with the words, “Let’s call it a night.”

Foggy nods. “Yeah.”

Matt hesitates in the door to the tiny hallway, his jacket in his hand. “Thanks,” he tells Foggy.

“Any time. Let’s do this again.”

“Sure,” Matt says with a hint of a smile.

Foggy watches him slip into his winter coat, wrapping the cotton scarf around his neck. Foggy wonders if Matt is going to go out tonight. He probably will. He hopes the suit keeps him warm enough.

“See ya, Foggy,” Matt tells him before he turns to go.

“Don’t break any bones tonight. Especially your own.”

Matt chuckles. “I’ll try.”

Foggy spends the rest of the night, trying not to worry. Of course he miserably fails despite his distraction technique in the form of Candy Crush Saga.

+-+-+-+-+

It’s about a week later that Karen suggests they do something together—the three of them. Maybe she’s still worried, and figures Matt needs positive reinforcement in his life. Or that he needs to get out more. Or both.

Foggy easily agrees when Karen asks him. Her suggestion is they visit the new, little intercultural winter market that’s open for the weekend at the Bandshell in Central Park. Foggy isn’t quite sure what to expect, but he trusts Karen’s judgment.

Temperatures are frigid that Friday night, and the snow crunches under their winter boots as they make their way through the Park. Matt has his gloved right hand lightly placed on the inside of Karen’s elbow, his cane idle in the other hand, and Foggy feels the smallest hint of relief that it’s not his arm that Matt had reached for. They’re still on shaky ground, despite the conversation they had over pizza and beer. The now greenish, fading bruise on Matt’s temple from whatever altercation he may have had a few days ago is another reminder of all the things Foggy doesn’t want to think about.

Matt and Karen are sharing an easy joke, and there’s laughter that actually sounds carefree. It gives Foggy hope that they can become a trio again. Or at least a semblance of it. He hurries to catch up with them, damn Karen and her long legs and Matt’s crazy-tough stamina.

The market is lovely, and they sample different hot foods from the stalls Karen eagerly drags them to. Foggy’s favorite are the mini-pancakes with spiked eggnog from the Dutch stall, but in the end they get stuck in the German corner, each cradling a paper cup of something called Glühwein in their hands.

Sentence snippets in all kinds of different languages float around them, and the mulled wine tastes both bitter and sweet on Foggy’s tongue. Its spicy aroma swirls into the air in steamy plumes. Matt looks happy as he sips his drink, the heat from the cup fogging up his glasses for a moment.

“You’ve been quiet,” Matt remarks. “Everything okay, Foggy?”

He nods. “Sorry. It’s been a long week. My brain can only handle this much mental weightlifting.”

“Working on anything interesting?”

“Complicated medical compensation claim. Cancer. It’s, uhm... it’s not pretty.” He’s had a hard time leaving that one at the office after work. The paperwork is killing him, but the bleak medical history and the photos even more.

Karen gives him an encouraging look. “Well, if there’s a good story there to be told, I know someone at the Bulletin.”

Foggy smiles, but it’s not especially buoyant. “Yeah, printing that will be a sure-fire way to get you dismissed as ‘most boring columnist ever’.”

“Hey, you know, I’m just sayin’...”

Matt tilts his head up. “Did I mention that I’ve been keeping an eye on our Hell’s Kitchen PI?”

“Oh yeah?” Foggy responds, looking at Karen to gauge her reaction. She already seems to know who they’re talking about, so he hopes it’s a safe topic. “And?”

Matt shrugs. “Nothing out of the ordinary. She drinks a lot. Leads kind of a chaotic life. Hangs out often with a guy by the name of Luke Cage.”

“No ‘incidents’?” He puts the word in air quotes.

“None that I’ve witnessed. Your rumors could have been wrong.”

“Or she’s keeping a low profile. Like certain other individuals we both know.”

Matt nods knowingly. “I’ll keep her on my radar.”

Karen adds, “Keep me on the distribution list, too, okay? That sounds like it could be an interesting opportunity.”

“You can expand your hero theme,” Foggy says. “Make it a series.”

She smiles. “I would love to.”

Matt smiles, too. “Did I tell you I loved your last piece?”

She slaps him playfully on the arm. “You’re just saying that to flatter me.”

He feigns indignation. “I am _not_.”

“You can’t even read the paper.”

Matt turns his head to angle it at Foggy, his voice mischievous. “Foggy, I detect a hint of ableism. We cannot let this stand.”

Foggy’s mouth quirks into a grin. “Online subscription,” he clarifies.

Karen blushes visibly. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry, Matt.”

His smile widens a notch. He lets his hand fall briefly onto her lower arm that’s draped loosely on the party table they’re grouped around. “It’s fine, Karen. I was just kidding.”

“No, Matt. God, I’m an idiot sometimes.”

“It’s okay. Really. Let’s blame it on the alcohol.”

She looks down at her cup, her expression embarrassed. “Yeah. Speaking of which, another round?”

Foggy turns around and looks at the sign above the stall that has a sizeable crowd around it. “Yeah, I’ll, uh... I’d like to try that thing that has a gazillion letters which I don’t even want to attempt to pronounce.”

“You mean the...” Karen gives it a try but fails as well, and Foggy isn’t even sure what she said. It started with an F.

“Yeah, that,” he confirms.

“Matt, what would you like?”

“I don’t know. Surprise me.”

She nods and joins the throng. Matt tilts his head sideways at an odd angle, and Foggy is guessing he’s trying to follow her heartbeat into the crowd. It still weirds him the hell out.

Without Karen, there’s a lull in the conversation. Foggy doesn’t know what to say. They’re lacking small talk topics these days, and talking about Matt’s nocturnal activities has a definite awkwardness potential in public places like this. They already covered Foggy’s day job, and there’s an unhealthy absence of hobbies on his part that they could talk about.

“How’s Marci?” Matt casually inquires.

Marci? Seriously? Matt never liked her much to begin with. “Yeah, she’s good. It’s nice having someone I already know at the office.”

“Are you two...?” He leaves the obvious question hanging in the air.

“Occasionally. Nothing serious.”

“You still in touch with Claire?”

He shakes his head. “Not lately.”

“Did you know she quit her job after what happened at the hospital?”

Matt gives him a nod, a glum expression on his face. “Yeah. And that’s my fault, too.”

“How is that your fault?”

“I asked her to take in those kids on the down-low. I knew she could get in trouble for it, but I asked her anyway.”

“Because you didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Foggy is surprised he’s actually defending Matt. “And she could have said no.”

“Yeah, but I knew she wouldn’t.”

Foggy gets it. More burnt bridges that Matt has regrets about. Although he somehow has a feeling Claire knew full-well what she was walking into. “You know, you can always reach out. Try to apologize.”

“It won’t help.”

“How do you know? She’s a pretty tough lady.”

Matt sighs. “I blew her off the last time. She was only trying to help, saying all the right things, and I still refused to listen.”

“A-ha!” Foggy points a finger at him. “Your devilish pride is getting in the way. But take it from me, Matthew Double-D Murdock. That horse you’re on, it may not be as high as you think, if you only tried to get off it. Cause I think sometimes you underestimate the human capacity for forgiveness.”

“Foggy, I don’t d—”

He interrupts, “Deserve it. Cut the Catholic bullshit, Matt, it’s getting really old. Maybe it’s not for you to decide what you deserve and what you don’t. You can still wallow in self-pity when she kicks you out the door by your shapely ass. Or better yet, come crying to me or Karen about it. That has to be healthier than moping around in your bed for three days without human contact or food.”

It is then that Karen comes back with three steaming cups that she puts down on the table. “What a spectacle. So we have,” she pushes one cup towards Foggy, “the special mulled wine with burnt sugar that I still can’t pronounce,” she pushes the other cup to Matt, “and something called yah-gah tea. I think. Spelled with a J. Enjoy, guys.”

“What did you get?” Foggy asks.

“Same as Matt.”

Foggy takes a sip, and it’s nice and spicy and sweet. Matt seems surprised by his drink, but keeps drinking. Karen takes her old place between them. “So, what have I missed?”

“Just same old Matt Murdock Catholic guilt drama.”

“Oh, do tell!”

Matt already looks uncomfortable, so Foggy opts for the safe option. “Nah, not worth retelling. I’ve just been trying to teach Matt to cast away his damn pride to make more room for his friends. I’m not sure he’s gotten the message. Do you want to drive it home?”

She leans in to gently bump her side against Matt’s. “I will, if I have to.”

Matt gives them a quick laugh. “Okay, okay, I get it. Less pride, more friendship. And alcohol.” He raises his cup, and Karen and Foggy follow suit.

“More alcohol,” Foggy echoes.

“Hear, hear,” Karen says as they toast.

The alcohol loosens their tongues, and everything seems two hundred percent funnier and easier and more carefree. Foggy revels in the sensation, hoping he won’t have too much of a hangover the next day.

By the time their cups are empty, Matt and Karen are giggling about something that Foggy has forgotten, as they try to make their way back to Hell’s Kitchen.

“Do we really want to walk?” Foggy complains.

Karen chides him, “Don’t be such a wuss. It’s barely a mile and a half.” She gestures at the sky above them, tiny snowflakes catching on her woolen gloves. “Besides, it’s a beautiful night. What more do you want?”

“A taxi,” Foggy grumbles. “Warmth. Wheels to drive you.”

“You’re a spoilsport.”

“I will gladly take the insult and wear it with pride.”

Matt has his cane extended, tapping it lightly on the paved path that is crunching with salt and grit as they walk along. Karen joins him on his right side, offering her elbow. “I’m okay,” Matt assures her.

“This may be as much for my benefit as for yours,” she laughs.

Matt folds his cane up again with practiced movements and wordlessly takes Karen’s elbow.

They’re halfway across the Park, when Karen suddenly stops. Her voice sounds a little slurred when she excitedly suggests, “Let’s make snow angels!”

Both Matt and Foggy stop short. “Snow angels?” Matt asks.

“You don’t know what snow angels are?”

He sounds just a little exasperated when he tells her, “I grew up in an orphanage, not a prison.”

Karen laughs it off. “Point taken. Come on, boys. Snow angels!”

Foggy doesn’t know if it’s the pleasant buzz from the alcohol or the spur of the moment, but he takes Matt’s arm and pulls him onto the snowy lawn beside them where Karen is already down on the ground. “Come on, Murdock. Unwritten rule. You gotta make at least one snow angel every winter.”

Matt doesn’t put up much of a fight, which of course he totally could if he wanted. Soon all three of them are lying in the fluffy snow, moving both arms and legs to create angel-like shapes as best as they can. Karen lets out a little giggle, and Foggy can’t help but smile.

They get up again after they’re done, admiring their creations in the pale light from the streetlamps. Despite everything, Matt’s somehow looks most like an actual angel, which is both apt and ironic.

“Hold on,” Foggy says to Matt, “Give me your cane.”

“What for?”

“You’ll see.”

He does, and Foggy unfolds it—if somewhat clumsily. He takes a step closer without ruining the shape with his footsteps, and adds a little detail where Matt’s head was.

“There,” Foggy says proudly. “Now it’s perfect.”

Matt grins at him. “You did _not_ just give it horns, did you?”

“Of course I did.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s fitting. Why are you not happy?”

Matt takes a small step closer to Foggy so that they almost touch. “All right. I’m happy. Can we go now?”

“Now who’s the spoilsport?”

Matt hesitates a moment by Foggy’s side, but then thinks better of it and waits for Karen to find her place next to him. It’s almost as if Matt’s booze-addled brain had, for a moment, fallen into old habits and wanted to take Foggy’s elbow, but then realized his faux-pas. Foggy isn’t sure what to think of that. He doesn’t want them to be awkward—which is what they are right now.

“Fogster, keep up,” Karen calls for him from a few feet away, and Foggy realizes he should be walking rather than contemplating almost-friendships.

He hurries to catch up with them. “Did you just call me Fogster?”

“I did,” she snickers. “Not good?”

“Not good times thirty. If you call me Fogster again, I will... I will...”

“You will what?”

“I will do terrible things to you that I need to cook up when my brain is actually functioning.”

“By which point you will have totally forgotten about the threat in the first place.”

“That’s entirely possible,” he concedes.

And then, suddenly, the city around them falls dark. The streetlights go out all at once, along with every building surrounding the Park that they can see. Karen and Foggy both stop at the same time, and Foggy says, “Whoa.”

Matt turns to him. “What?”

“All the lights just went out.”

“What do you mean? A power outage?”

“Yeah. The streetlights, buildings, everything. It’s spooky.”

“Actually,” Karen pipes in, “it’s magical. When do we ever see the city without lights like this?”

Foggy looks around, and realizes she’s right. There’s still the headlights from the cars in the distance, and some people have their cell phones out to use the flashlight function. She nudges Matt lightly. “Can you tell the difference?”

Matt tilts his head up and closes his eyes for a long moment. “Yeah. It’s hard to describe. There are more voices, people being confused, less electrical buzzing. There’s a shift in... something.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Just... different. And it’s not the whole city. Just a few blocks.”

Foggy muses, “Shit, I hope it’s not another alien attack or some sinister Avengers mission.”

Matt cocks his head for a long moment to listen more closely. “Relax, Foggy. It sounds like a regular power outage to me.”

“I’m not sure that raises my reassurance levels, but, uhm, can we go? My feet are turning into popsicles.”

Matt turns toward the path, then stops. “Do you guys need me to guide you?”

“The snow is pretty bright, I think we’ll be okay.”

“Well, my elbows are here for the taking.”

And just because it seems the right thing to do, and maybe also because he values intact bones and tendons, his hand seeks out Matt’s left elbow, while Karen takes his right one. Foggy can only just see the small smile on Matt’s face, and it gives him hope.

When they reach the edge of the Park, there is less snow and more sludge on the sidewalks. The headlights from passing cars don’t do much for their visibility, and Foggy is actually glad that they have Matt with them tonight.

“Shall we go to my place until the power is restored?” Matt suggests. It’s closer than Foggy’s, and definitely more spacious.

“No offense,” Foggy tells him, “but you don’t seem like the type to keep candles around.”

“You’d be surprised,” Matt says, a definite edge of amusement to his voice.

“Seriously? What for?”

Matt seems to shrug. “They do funky things to the temperature distribution in a room.”

“I won’t even comment on how weird that sounds. But let’s go. I’m totally in. Karen?”

“Sure,” she easily agrees.

Foggy still feels the tingly sensation of the alcohol buzzing through this veins, to which he attributes the fact that his mind gets hung up on how beautiful and weird and somehow fucked up it is that a blind man is leading them through the streets of Hell’s Kitchen—a blind man who is also the vigilante who skips across rooftops and fights just as badass as Neo from _The Matrix_.

Unfamiliar pride surges up his chest, together with a sense of belonging and two handfuls of forgiveness that he wants to scoop up and hand over to Matt so he can draw him into a hug that’s long overdue.

Shit, he’s had too much to drink, and it’s tearing down all his defenses. He isn’t sure he likes what it’s doing to him, but maybe it’s time to open the door a notch and let Matt Murdock sneak back into his life.

He slows down, because maybe there’s something he should say right here, right now. Matt slows his step as well, and asks, “Foggy? Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Never better.”

“Are you sure?”

“I just... I love that we did this. This was, like, the best idea ever.”

“Foggy?” Matt asks again, a touch of concern in his voice.

But Foggy just laughs and adds, “Don’t listen to me. It’s the alcohol speaking. Lead on, Murdock.”

He tightens his touch on Matt’s arm and matches his pace—towards warmth and hope and a friendship waiting to be rebuilt.

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End file.
